One down: Osama dead

The most obvious face of global Islamic terrorism who often claimed credit for the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States was killed Sunday by U.S. Navy Seal Team Six, a top military counter-terrorism unit.  Osama bin Laden now sleeps with the fishes - according to Islamic custom.

The U.S. official who disclosed the burial at sea to the Associated Press said it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains.  President Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial.  There were no casualties in the military action completed in less than an hour.

According to multiple reports U.S. Blackhawk helicopters ferried about two dozen troops into a compound identified by the CIA as bin Laden's hideout — and back out again in less than 40 minutes. Bin Laden was shot in the head, officials said, after he and his bodyguards resisted the assault.

Also killed were three adult males, including one of bin Laden's sons, whom officials did not name. One of bin Laden's sons, Hamza, is a senior member of Al-Qaida. U.S. officials also said one woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, and two other women were injured.

Bin Laden was discovered in a significantly ostentatious custom-built hideout not far from a Pakistani military academy.  

Bin Laden and Al-Qaida, a herd of ignorant goat lovers, are also responsible for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 231 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.  Al Qaida has killed more Muslims than people of any other faith.

The AP is reporting that “while the intelligence community does not have insight into current Al-Qaida plotting, the department believes symbolic, economic and transportation targets could be at risk, and small arms attacks against other targets can't be ruled out.”

Whatever the repercussions, Bin Laden's death ends a decade long manhunt.